Friday, July 11, 2003
A Stroll Around The Zoo
A poison arrow frog is an astonishingly tiny creature. I learned this when standing in a dripping rainforest in Costa Rica a couple of years ago. I also learned that, despite their eye-popping coloration, such frogs are extremely difficult to spot, once your helpful guide leaves your side. Reflecting on my surprise, I realised that all my notions about such frogs came from perfectly focused, blow up photographs in glossy nature magazines. Without thinking, part of me was thus expecting a frog - oh - at least the size of matchbox, if not a magazine cover.
Sketching at Potawatomi Zoo this weekend, I was reminded of that encounter. Zoos give people a chance to enjoy and learn more about all kinds of animals we will rarely, if ever, otherwise meet. If I’d been to the zoo, I would’ve known how tiny rainforest frogs can be. On the other hand, even in the best zoo, wild animals are confined, and not in their natural habitats. The herps room is in South Bend, not Central America. The very fact that zoos display animals to be seen by humans conflicts with most animals’ natural wariness around dangerous and blundering Homo Sapiens.
The Potawatomi Zoo is an excellent place to watch people watching animals watching people. Founded in 1902, the zoo claims to be Indiana’s oldest, and seems to improve on each visit. The zoo has 500 animals from alligators to zebras, as well as a miniature farm with kids to pet, and it acquires new specimens each year. The grounds are attractively landscaped with all kinds of flowers in bloom that attract butterflies, as well as Moms and Granddads with strollers full of quizzical infants. Rowdy toddlers squeal delightedly at the muddy warthog and flamboyant macaws.
Our conflicting attitudes to non-human animals are easily observed, especially around the old world primates. Just listen, as everyone from 7 to 70 interprets the monkeys’ behaviour in terms of familiar human emotions: “Aww look, that one’s sad because the others won’t let her play;” “Look! He stole the fruit and now he’s laughing at the others.” In this way, we readily assume a special kinship with the chimp. Despite Finding Nemo, I don’t overhear visitors to the carp pool saying: “Poor ickle fishy, is he feeling lonely, then?” We just don’t feel the same affinity with fish as with primates. But, as the philosopher Peter Singer points out, at the last moment, we deny empathy. Here we stand, happily watching chimps at the zoo, where we’d be appalled to see humans caged up and on display. We wouldn’t justify locking up our human relatives by saying that, well, they are not terribly smart, and they are really rather hairy.
Lost in these thoughts, I turn a corner on the main pathway and come eyeball to eyeball with a huge tiger. My heart stops. Then it registers that a thick wall of glass separates us. This moment is one of the experiences a zoo can give, that a TV documentary or glossy magazine cannot: the shock of confirmation that wild animals really are real and not just figments of Disney’s imagination.
But that tiger embodies the moral dilemma of modern zoos. In its natural state, the Amur tiger would range freely over miles of forests in Siberia: in the zoo, it’s confined to pacing a figure- eight path this humid, Midwestern July. Something jars in watching this powerful beast caged up among the cries of “See the nice kitty!” from human spectators. But, in its natural range in Siberia, this tiger would almost certainly be shot dead by poachers, or starve as its habitat is destroyed by logging and human expansion. There remain only 350 adult Siberian tigers in the wild, and the Potawatomi staff work with other zoos to ensure that the species will at least survive in captivity. And the child who today just wants to pat the nice kitty may be tomorrow’s defender of biodiversity.
A random selection from more than 300 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:
Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe
Louise Collins -- A Stroll Around The Zoo / More essays by Louise
April Lidinsky -- More essays by April
Jonathan Nashel -- More essays by Jonathan
Jeff Nixa -- More essays by Jeff
Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken
Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- More essays by Jeanette
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About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, and Ken Smith.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
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